


Losers Love Best

by plskashootme



Series: Losers Love Best - Part One [1]
Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Ben Hanscom is a Good Friend, Beverly Marsh & Richie Tozier Are Best Friends, Beverly Marsh Loves Ben Hanscom, Beverly Marsh is a Good Friend, Bill Denbrough & Eddie Kaspbrak Are Best Friends, Bisexual Ben Hanscom, Bisexual Beverly Marsh, Bisexual Bill Denbrough, Bisexual Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak & Beverly Marsh Are Best Friends, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak is a Mess, Established Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, F/M, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, M/M, Minor Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Minor Bill Denbrough/Stanley Uris, Pansexual Stanley Uris, Poet Ben Hanscom, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris Are Best Friends, Richie Tozier Being an Asshole, Richie Tozier Flirts, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Richie Tozier and Mike Wheeler Are Twins, Richie Tozier is a Little Shit, Richie Tozier is a Mess, Sassy Stanley Uris, Slow Burn, Soft Richie Tozier, Stanley Uris is So Done, Stanley Uris is a Good Friend
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-05 17:49:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21212633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plskashootme/pseuds/plskashootme
Summary: Slow-Burn (semi) Reddie fanfiction. Takes place roughly four years after the defeat of Pennywise as kids. Richie is coming to grips with his crush on Eddie, and likewise for Eddie though it's mostly written from Richie's POV (third person limited POV throughout story). Beverly and Ben are mentioned and already established; Bill and Stanley's relationship will develop in the background throughout the story. More characters will have 'screen time' (technically 'word time' but still) the further the story goes on.





	1. The Barn

Richie exhales deeply, the late-September sun basking his back in warmth as his feet spin in rapid circles, determined to keep his bike moving.  _ Four years _ . Four years plus a week since they’d  _ ‘killed that fucking clown’ _ \- Richie’s words. The sun is setting slowly, like it had that night. Richie feels a smile spread across his lips as he remembers how they’d celebrated after, how they’d hidden out in the barn at Mike’s house with Bev’s weed and smoked till they swore they were floating. He remembered how Eddie had smiled at him with his dopey, stoned-out-of-his-mind face. Richie had thought he was cute. To be fair, though, he still did.

“Beep beep, Richie!”

He turns his head, laughing as Eddie seems to be trying to race him on his bike. Except Richie has more momentum and they were going up a hill (plus Richie has better calves and strength for bike-riding compared to Eddie’s scrawney frame).

“Not this time, Kaspbrak!” Richie howls as he makes it over the hill and soars down, arms and legs wide out in a way that makes Eddie’s stomach flip just watching him, knowing how easily he could fall and hurt himself. Why does he sound like such a parent all of a sudden? It’s only Richie! He does stupid shit all the time!

Richie makes it down safely regardless of Eddie’s useless worrying, skidding to a stop at the end of the road. He looks around; he’d been biking so long and zoning out so hard he hadn’t even noticed he went down a dead-end road.

“Dude-” Eddie wheezes something akin to a laugh when he skids to a stop beside Richie, taking a deep breath thankful to his inhaler. “You are so stupidly reckless, y’know that, Tozier? Gonna give me a fucking heart attack!” Richie snickers. “Where was your head at?” Eddie taps Richie’s forehead with his index finger, which is swatted off promptly. “I’ve been calling your name for so long. Bill texted the group chat, you’d know if you ever checked it. We’re gonna meet the gang at Mike’s barn for a movie night.”

“Ooh, smoking and drinking with the Losers? Sounds awesome. I’ll get the beer and weed.”

“Bev’s actually got the weed covered, she just needs you to use your fake ID to get the beer.”

Richie rolls his eyes playfully, “Oh, I see how it is, use me for my ability to get alcohol? Low blow,” he teases, Eddie snorts, “Why didn’t you just text me?”

Eddie glances down at where his feet meet the scuffed pavement of the dead-end road and Richie  _ swears _ he can see him blush, right there in front of him. “Uh…” Eddie pauses, probably to think of a believable lie, Richie guesses.

“I wanted to, um, talk to you for a minute,” he finally manages to spit out. Richie watches him carefully, feeling it wasn’t a complete lie. He would be able to guess if Eddie was lying, he was horrible at it.

“Okay…” Richie moves his hand in a circle, as if to coax out what Eddie is clearly struggling to say.

The boy blushes  _ again _ , which throws Richie off, and he scratches nervously at the back of his neck, “Can you help me make a fake ID?” He blurts. It’s obviously not what’s bothering him, it wouldn’t have Eddie this nervous. But, like always, Richie endures, because Eddie is cute when he’s all blushy and because the kid can’t lie for shit.

“Sure, Eds; but in the meantime, I’m gonna teach you how to lie better,” he hums casually as if Eddie didn’t put on the best damned performance of his life trying to lie to one of his closest friends.

“Wh- but I- I’m not-” Eddie splutters as Richie gets situated on his bike again.

“Relax, Kaspbrak, if you’re gonna have a fake ID that you intend to actually  _ use _ , you need to know how to lie through your teeth without anyone noticin’,” Richie puts a foot on the pedal, “Now, c’mon, we can do this at the bunkhouse.”

\--------------------------

“Richie are you sure people will buy this?” Eddie presses for the fourth time as Richie carefully inserts the most adult picture of Eddie either of them had; it’s a picture of Eddie at their Junior Prom the year before, wearing a white button up that’d been unbuttoned slightly. He’s grinning wide as Bev had urged Eddie and Richie and the rest of the gang to pose against the white wall of the entrance of their school before they went back to Mike’s barn to smoke the night away (Richie was already fairly stoned, which meant, logistically, Eddie was second-hand stoned). It’s Richie’s favorite picture of Eddie because he’s  _ genuinely happy _ . He’s genuinely happy a lot, to be fair, but this is natural, unfiltered, pure  _ Eddie Fucking Kaspbrak _ happiness. 

“Fucking  _ relax _ , Kaspbrak, people will believe it only if you can lie right; and stop breathing down my shoulder like that or I’ll fuck it up!” He hisses as he tries to be as professional about it as he can. Because in reality, Eddie being that close, so close that warm breath coasts down Richie’s neck, makes him tingle in the best ways.

Richie scrunches up his nose, pushing his glasses farther up as his black curls fall slightly in front of his eyes. Eddie smiles, catching himself as he watches Richie thinking he looks cute when he’s focused, trying to pull himself back because Richie was  _ right there _ fucking two feet away.

After a few silent minutes with both boys hyperfixating on the fact that they are  _ so close _ together, Richie looks up and adjusts his glasses, looking at the fake ID with a grin. He passes it to Eddie, “Now, Kaspbrak, if only you could fucking  _ lie _ like any decent American.” Richie snorts as Eddie kicks him playfully with his foot as he adjusts himself in the hammock.

Richie watches for a moment before grunting as he stands and holds a hand out for Eddie, “C’mon, I gotta get the beer. We should get there soon before they get pissed anyway. You go on, I’ll meet you there.”

Eddie paused. He wanted to go with, wanted to have more time with Richie before he was making his stupid jokes again that, for some unknown reason, Eddie found endearing. He wanted more time with Richie to pretend there was something there between them when there wasn’t, just a little more time to pretend before he was cruely reminded of reality.

“Okay.”

\--------------------------

“ _ Tozier _ .” Eddie is  _ beyond _ exhausted at this point, one-hundred percent done with Richie being a little shitstick, “ _ Tozier _ for the ever-loving  _ fuck, _ will you  _ please _ pass the  _ fucking blunt _ .”

Richie laughs and passes it to Eddie who’s sitting on the hay bale behind where he’s sitting. It probably wasn’t the best idea, smoking weed in a barn full of hay, but no one seemed to be worried about it, and Eddie was trying his best to push it aside. He laid back on the square bale of hay, legs hanging over the edge near Richie’s shoulder who leans up against the bale while sitting on the floor.

“Guys, guys, Eddie’s right, he needs the weed more than any of us,” Richie begins with a poorly-stifled laugh, “He’s got a stick further up his ass than any of us-”

“ _ Beep Beep, Richie.” _ Bev hums around the second blunt she’d started. Ben rolls his eyes as Eddie kicks Richie’s shoulder wiht his foot. 

“Fuck off, Tozier.”

“No,  _ you _ fuck off, Kaspbrak. I had the weed first, I was sitting here first.” 

Eddie scoffed and sat up, flicking smallers pieces of hay into Richie’s curly hair as he slides off the hay bale and walks out of the barn, around the corner of the large building, and slides down against the exterior wall. 

The air is crisper than Eddie originally expected. He should really get his jacket from the barn but he can’t stand to walk into the same room as Richie again. He huffs and takes another hit, crossing his arms across his knees and rubbing his forearms in hopes of getting some warmth in the brisk September night air.

Footseps crunch a few feet away in the hay and fallen leaves. They get louder as the person steps closer. Eddie sighs. He knows who it is. He wraps his arms around himself tighter, taking small hits while trying to keep himself as warm as humanly possible without a jacket in this weather. He really should think things through before he storms off outside without his jacket. 

Richie steps around the corner and lets out a barely-audible sigh of relief as he sees Eddie on the ground. He slowly slides down the exterior wall of the barn beside the other boy. Eddie sighs softly, but it’s not one of exhaustion from Richie, just general exhaustion. He passes Richie the rest of his blunt and visibly shivers, rubbing his goosebumped-arms. 

Richie sighs and pulls off his jacket, holding it out towards Eddie who’s still shivering.

“Rich, what are you-”

“Just take the fuckin’ jacket, Eds,” Richie sighs. Eddie rolls his eyes but slides his arms into the sleeves and pulls the sweatshirt around him with a carefully-hidden smile, though Richie does manage to see it and smile to himself softly in response. Eddie buries himself in the warmth of his friend’s clothing, trying to hide the blush at how it smells so uniquely like Richie; some kind of a mix of weed, dirt, hay, and ink. 

“So,” Richie starts after a while, seemingly unaffected by the cold, but if he is, he’s amazing at hiding it. “Why did you want me to make you a fake ID earlier?”

Eddie swallows shallowly, willing himself not to stumble horribly on his words given the anxiety Richie re-ignited and the stoned-ness in himself. “Uh…”  _ Dammit. _ “I just wanted to have a fake ID, I guess, always kinda wanted one.”

“Bullshit,” he hums, sitting up a little more, just highlighting their height difference even more so even as they’re sitting. “Eds, you’ve never wanted a fake ID before today, and you were flustered as all fuck before you stumbled on your words and make up the b.s. excuse of wanting a fake ID. Plus, not to mention that your mom would be pissed if she found it. So, either you don’t want to tell me why you  _ really _ wanted the fake ID, or you don’t want to tell me why you really wanted to talk to me.”

Eddie opened his mouth and closed it a few times, trying to figure out if he was really going to tell Richie. He settled on keeping his mouth shut, “It’s nothing, Rich, don’t worry about me.” He sighed.

Richie glanced at him skeptically, “Alright. But you know you can text me if you want to, if it’s easier.” He shrugged, “I’m gonna go back inside, you should too. Mike made a couple smaller hay piles to lay in.”

With that, he walked off, leaving Eddie in his jacket around the corner of the barn. It took about ten minutes of Eddie mulling everything over and smelling Richie’s jacket before he decided to finally go join his friends inside the barn.

He had to give Mike props, the hay piles did look really comfortable. Especially with the quilts he’d brought out for them all, or whoever decided to spend the night. Which turned out to be all of them considering it was too dark and too late at night now to bike home or even get rides. 

Eddie glanced around from where he stood at the door of the barn; Ben and Beverly had picked a hay pile to lay in, no surprise. Bill and Stanley were MIA it seemed, at least for the moment. Mike laid a couple feet above them on a small ledge, some film playing on a projector Mike had set up. It looked like Godzilla but as soon as Eddie saw that Richie was patting the spot next to him, coaxing him over, Eddie lost all interest in whatever was playing. All he could think about was how Richie  _ wanted _ him to lay there, wanted them to share a blanket.  _ Wanted _ to be close to him.

“Hey,” Eddie whispered as he walked in and laid down beside Richie, who promptly tossed the other end of the blanket over Eddie when he got situated.

“Hi,” Richie whispered back, smiling slightly as they got comfortable.

By the end of the movie, Bill and Stan return, picking their own pile and laying down  _ together _ which seems to peak Eddie’s interest, but only slightly, as Richie turns to cuddle him and even slides an arm around Eddie’s waist over his shirt, head on his shoulder. Eddie swears his heart beating was  _ audible _ to Richie because of how close he is to it.

“Relax,” Richie whispers, putting a hand on his chest with a slight yawn. “Get your heart to calm the fuck down, Kaspbrak,” he chuckles softly.

“Ha, funny. Just go to bed, dickwad.”

“Who says I’m gonna go to sleep? Maybe I just wanna cuddle you in the hay piles and make your heart do this little flutter thing it’s doing right now,” Richie smirks slightly.

Eddie blushes dark, shoving his face lightly, but pulling him back right after.  _ This is nice _ . Eddie falls asleep and dreams peacefully for the first night in ages.


	2. Bill's House - The Confession

Two weeks later...

Richie shrugs on his sweatshirt and a large denim jacket on top of it, slipping into his plain black Vans and jogging out to his bike he’d left laying in the grass in front of his house. He climbs on the bike and sits there, pulling out his phone to look at the messages again.

** _[Text; Group Chat; Losers]_ **

** _Bill: Movie night at my place, no parents for the weekend. No weed, no alcohol_ **

** _Richie: You run a very respectable slumber party, Billie-Boy. Too bad there won’t be strippers_ **

** _Eddie: Beep-Beep, Richie_ **

Okay, he can do this. Just a simple movie night at Bill’s place. Nothing too extravagant, nothing too weird or out of the ordinary. Why would there be? It’s just a sleepover at Billie’s. A sleepover Richie  _ and _ Eddie are going to. Not that that’s weird either, but it makes things a shitton harder if you’re trying to hide your feelings from the person you may just be in love with, and you’re going to be in the same house as them for a whole night, in close quarters, probably brushing against each other…

“Fucking snap out of it, Tozier. It’s just Eddie. He’s a shy dork, he won’t make a move. And if you don’t, then you don’t have to worry about ruining a friendship,” Richie encourages himself as he starts pedaling his bike. “But if he weren’t going to make a move, if he weren’t into me, why wouldn’t he have just given my jacket back to me at the barn? Did he want to keep it or just forget to give it back?” Richie groaned to himself, shaking his head at how ridiculous and hormonal and Hallmark-love-struck he sounded.

It’s just a sleepover.

\--------------------------

“Tozier, what the fuck-” Eddie begins to huff as Richie plunks himself down on the couch between Eddie and Stanley. It’s already packed on the one couch. Ben is on the floor, Bill is next to Stanley, Bev beside Bill, and Mike is in a chair cornered to the couch. There are too many people on the couch, which means they’re beginning to get squished. Which is perfect if Richie plans on making a move like he impulsively decided upon during the bike ride over to Bill’s house nearly eight hours ago already.

“Scooch aside, Kaspbrak, this is  _ my spot _ ,” Richie grins as he wiggles in and settles down, passing the popcorn to Stanley beside him when beckoned to.

He’s barely sits there about twenty minutes when Eddie readjusts himself to hug his knees close to his chest. Richie sits with his legs outstretched and spread in front of the couch as he slumps back into it, still just as tall as Eddie. Which he would have joked about in normal circumstances, but he’s to busy having a heart attack right now to do so. Why is he having a heart attack, you ask? Because Eddie fucking Kaspbrak is moving his hand down Richie’s arm slowly, pinky finger curling around Richie’s.

_ “Shit, oh shit, he’s making a fucking move! He’s making a move! Fuck! What do I do?!” _ Richie screeches in his mind, face burning bright red to match Eddie’s beside him as they slowly lock fingers.

_ “You took the fucking hint, Tozier, thank God,” _ Eddie sighs in his head exhaustedly. He blushes a littl when richie’s thumb begins to rub up and down on Eddie’s hand. 

Just as Richie considers turning to talk to Eddie about the monumental breakthrough they’ve just had, Stanley bumps Richie on his way to stand. To which, naturally, Richie’s hand that was holding Eddie’s flings up to scratch at the back of his head nervously.

“Well, I think three movies is it for me, I’m going to bed,” Stanley yawns, to which Beverly nods and stands with him, “Follow me if you value sleep.” Bill stands and says goodnight to Eddie and Richie, who still haven’t moved, and Ben, who only decides to get up about five minutes later to join the others in Bill’s bedroom where they’d set up sleeping bags on the floor.

Richie coughs softly when everyone leaves, taking it upon himself to clean up the other’s mess, which is a definite first since he’s usually the one  _ causing  _ the mess, not cleaning it up. Eddie notices and follows suite, cleaning up bits of popcorn and graham crackers from the s’mores Stanley insisted on making with Bill in the kitchen earlier. Both boys pause in the kitchen when they finish cleaning up. Richie glances down at his socked feet shyly. He’d decided on wearing his fuzzy, knee-high Star Wards socks that now just felt ridiculous. 

“So…” Eddie starts, and Richie could just about kiss him for 1- how adorable and flustered and shy he looks but mostly for 2 how he started the conversation so Richie didn’t have to. He was horrible at starting conversations. Especially serious ones.

“So,” Richie murmurs back shyly. Eddie glances up at Richie to meet his eyeline, both boys just staring at each other for a long while before Richie sees Eddie blink. “I win,” he murmurs with a faint victorious grin.

“Richie can you be strai-” Eddie sighs, stopping himself, “Richie, can you be serious for a minute?” Richie nods hesitantly. He never was good at being serious. “Do you like me?”

“Oh jeez, Eds, I dunno,” the seriousness is already out of the window, “I just was real gay with you in Mike’s barn and cuddled you in my fucking jacket, which you kept by the way, which is also very gay, and we just held hands and I was about ten seconds away from kissing you on the couch,  _ and _ in the barn,  _ and _ just now seeing how cute and flustered you get when you-”

Richie gasps softly as he’s cut off and met with the softest lips in the whole world. He blinks wide-eyed before he realizes that Eddie’s eyes are closed, so he closes his too. God, that just makes it better. Richie didn’t think it could possibly get any better but it did. 

When they pull apart Richie’s glasses are foggy beyond belief. Eddie just smiles and pulls them off to wipe them before putting them back on.

“So, that just happened…” Richie sputters softly as he moves to sit down on Bill’s living room couch again, letting his brain catch up with the last ten minutes cause holy fuck.

Eddie nods slowly as he moves to join Richie on the couch, “Yeah… are you okay?”

Richie looks stunned, he chuckles, “Yeah, man, I’m great. Just… surprised? I mean, not totally; you care about me a lot and always support me even with my stupidest ideas, or the ones that we both know I won’t follow through on. I just, didn’t expect you to like me like I like you…” he chuckles, “God, I sound like a nine year old girl.”

“But a very handsome nine year old girl,” Eddie corrects. Both boys smile.

It’s quiet for a minute, and Richie swears he can hear whispers from Bill’s room and the crickets chirping outside. It feels like a forever is passing; each tick of the clock seems like an eternity. Then the silence is broken.

“Can I hug you, Eds?” Richie asks softly, voice smaller than any of them were used to. He’s glad it’s just him and Eddie there.

“Yeah of course. You’ve hugged me a hundred times, Rich,” he moves closer towards the taller boy.

“Yeah, but now it’ll be different…” Richie barely hesitates before he hugs onto Eddie firmly but gently. “See?” He whispers when he feels a different connection between them, a new spark.

“I like change, Richie.”

They stay like that for a while, hugging, talking, kissing; until Eddie nearly falls asleep in the other boy’s arms. Richie is the one to suggest they go try to sleep, making jokes about how cranky Eddie is when he doesn’t get enough rest. Instead of Eddie whackin Richie upside the back of his head, or making some snide comment in return, he just shakes his head with a quiet, breathy laugh, and kisses the hand that is now permanently attached to his own. Well, until they get into Bill’s bedroom.

Richie, albeit with foggy glasses and not good nighttime eyesight, makes out three body figures in sleeping bags on the floor, and four empty ones. Beverly, Ben, and Mike are in the room. Bill and Stanley aren’t.

Eddie seems to notice this too, and points it out as the pair get into their sleeping bags after moving them much closer and zipping them together to make one big enough to cuddle in, “Think they’re-”

“Fucking?” Richie interrupts.

“Beep-beep, Rich,” Eddie rolls his eyes fondly, “No, they aren’t fucking. They’re probably just in another room or something…”

“Mhm, yeah, okay. But I’m not the one who’s gonna bring up their hickeys tomorrow morning over breakfast then.”

\--------------------------

Eddie wakes up first but doesn’t dare move. He wants this to last as long as possible. Instead, he buries his face further into Richie’s collar bone, sighing softly. Richie wakes not long after, though he isn’t as worried about the situation as Eddie seems to be. Poor kid worries about everything. Has anxiety medication to help him deal with the anxiety about having his anxiety medication.

Richie slides a hand up Eddie’s lower back, rubbing the soft, warm skin, gently. Eddie sighs. They’re both obviously awake now. 

“Rich…” Eddie speaks softly against his warm skin. God, he really doesn’t want to leave; but, the fact that he’s starving, the rest of their group is  _ right there _ , and has pills to take, seems to overrun his want to stay.

“Shh, Eds,” Richie urges, pressing his face into Eddie’s messy, unwashed (really just overnight) hair. 

“Richie,” Eddie tries again a few minutes later, and Richie loosens his grip a little. 

“Fine,” he sighs, sitting up with Eddie in his lap practically because of how they were cuddling. 

“Rich, I don’t want to…” Eddie murmurs, not pulling his face from Richie’s collar yet; not ready to see if everyone was there watching, not ready to find out it was really just a dream (though the soft bruised feeling on his lips should help keep that in check), not ready to have to go out into their homophobic town again where he wouldn’t be able to just be himself with Richie.

“I know, Eds, but you need your medication, what little of it isn’t a gazibo and is actually real and good for your health, and you need to eat and drink.” Richie chuckles softly at himself being the responsible boyfriend. Could they call themselves that now? Boyfriends? That’s definitely an issue for when they’re both awake more and not trying to put of everything in favor of cuddling.


End file.
